Students build futuristic city

Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Fifth graders at Central Elementary stand beside the buldings they made for their "Future City." Fourth graders also participated in the activity. Lorri Sughroue/McCook Gazette

McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. -- Fourth and fifth graders at Central Elementary took a walk to the future this past month.

Under the direction of art teacher Deb Goodenberger, the students imagined what a city would be like 200 years from now, creating buildings individually or with partners. It meant using lots of chipboard, which is a studier version of cardboard and plenty of glue

It also meant thought-provoking conversations on what a future city would -- or wouldn't -- need and what that meant for people, Goodenberger said.

"We kept the discussions positive, no doom and gloom like the world ending," she said. "We had some wonderful discussions, imagining what the world would be like."

These included whether there would even be cities but instead, people living in one big building or in domes. Other topics that came up was pollution and whether such things as prisons would be needed in the future.

Goodenberger put a few limitations on the the buildings: they couldn't just be rectangular but in different shapes, and for continuity purposes, all windows had to be blue. Parks and green spaces were not included due to time constraints. Other than those restrictions, the kids were left to their own imagination.

Students first placed paper roadways on the table (and in the air), then arranged their buildings. This encompassed the usual -- daycares, hotels -- and the not so usual -- stores selling "painless plastic body parts" and a dealership selling a "Hover car" for $3,000 and "Hover boards"for $500. (A time machine was a steal at only $1,000).

"This gave the kids a chance to be little engineers and make their own ideas work," Goodenberger said. "It gave them a chance to talk and think about the future."

One things the kids apparently believed wouldn't change was human behavior: they included a prison, right down the block from a water park and daycare center.

Funds from the project came from the McCook Art Council.

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